I am eager for that calendar page to flip so that we Republicans can stop bludgeoning each other and start doing something we are far more cheerful about — beating Democrats.

This is supposed to be a good year for us nationally, too, with the possibility of the U.S. Senate returning to GOP hands. But first we have to endure the rest of this brutal season featuring people who usually sing from the same hymnal blasting each other in a sorry barrage of negative ads that only serves to erode enthusiasm for our system.

Charles Krauthammer writes that nothing else is advertised in this slash-and-burn style. Delta Air Lines, he observes, “does not show pictures of US Air Flight 427 with a voice-over that says ‘USAir, airline of death. Going to Pittsburgh? Fly Delta instead.’ And McDonald’s … does not run ads reminding viewers that Jack-in-the-Box hamburgers once killed two customers. Why? Because Delta and McDonald’s know that America … would soon be riding trains and eating box-lunch sandwiches.”

But this is what our candidates do to each other, and one week from now, it will all will be over for another primary season. But to what end? Here are the two biggest questions to be answered by the runoff returns of next Tuesday night:

In the lieutenant governor’s race, we will learn whether incumbent David Dewhurst has walked into his second buzz saw in two years. A proud and effective conservative with a 15-year track record of honorable service, he was smoked by Ted Cruz in 2012 in a U.S. Senate campaign featuring voters hungry for a fighter. Today, as Democrats entertain a vision of turning Texas blue, Dan Patrick’s flaming pitchfork approach is sparking similar excitement that left Dewhurst 13 points down on March 4.

As in the campaign against Cruz, Dewhurst’s forces are running a clumsy, ill-fitting, nasty campaign that may once again backfire. This time, Dewhurst should have portrayed himself as the rock-steady steward of a state that has fended off the scourges of the Obama years. Instead his handlers dig up images of a shirtless Patrick designed to make him look disheveled when he was actually auctioning the shirt off his back for a children’s charity.

Another proud conservative, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, has come unhinged in an attempt to smear Patrick with the stigma of mental health issues from the 1980s. It’s just sad.

At least in the attorney general race, we have allegations that invite serious debate. Ken Paxton, who outdrew Dan Branch by 11 points two months ago, has had to respond to various holes in some professional and state ethics filings. The Paxton response has been to admit the omissions, own up to them, correct them and assure voters it won’t happen again.

So will that work?

To the surprise of no one, Branch devotees are dismissive while Paxton’s base is showing a deep well of forgiveness. If those are mutually canceling factors, the difference may come down to whose voters are willing to show up the day after a long Memorial Day weekend. Recent history shows those factors leaning toward grassroots-propelled candidates like Paxton and Patrick.

But, this is why we have elections. The real answers will come from real voters. But next time we travel through this primary season meat grinder together, can we please put the runoff about three weeks after the initial vote instead of the nearly three months we’ve just slogged through?